As Gunns’ quest to build a massive pulp mill in the Tamar Valley languishes for want of investor capital, new ways and means of providing assistance to keep the project alive are being desperately pursued.

It is no surprise to hear from Andrew Wilkie (Mercury: Canberra ‘to pay for pulp mill’) that there is a proposal to finance the mill using public money through the federal Export Finance and Insurance Commission.

At the same time as the release of the West report (which advocated, as part of the “solution” to the deliberately arranged trade-off for an end to native-forest logging by Gunns in exchange for cessation of opposition to the pulp mill), the Launceston City Council unveiled a submission for public funds to be made available for the construction of a new bridge across the Tamar. The plan is for a bridge which would allow heavy vehicle traffic to bypass the lower end of the Launceston city’s busy arterial north-south connection.

According to reports in the Launceston Examiner (27-28 March), “Mayor Albert van Zetten says the council’s $107 million traffic management plan hinges on Gunns’ pulp mill”. Whatever the merits of the proposal for Launceston’s development, the fact that the mayor made the link with the pulp mill is interesting. There are many other arguments that he could have used to support the plan, and it is also possible that the Examiner skewed what van Zetten said. But by linking the two the mayor suggests that the infrastructure would be of direct benefit for the mill itself. The nature of the debate in northern Tasmania about the mill makes this question unavoidable: Is the Launceston City Council working to make it easier for Gunns to gain a joint venture partner?

The related question, given the West report, is whether it will be decided that the monocultural plantation estate “demands” that the pulp mill go ahead, and just how many sweeteners and how much public money are now required to get it built? One thing is certain: It would need a guarantee that any losses to private interests during the life of the project be socialised, in much the same way that Forestry Tasmania’s losses are socialised annually now. It is impossible for the mill to compete in the global marketplace, at any time into the future, without the support of public subsidies. It will have absolutely no competitive advantages with mills in more favourable locations around the world.

One other interesting aspect of the current desperation is the increasingly strident attempts to close down the anti-pulp mill community voices. This is apparent in the West conflation of the “community” with the ENGOs, and the deliberate elimination from the whole roundtable-SOP-IGA-West deliberations of a triple-line representation – meaning community, industry and environment.

The media on all sides has increasingly chosen to ignore public opposition to the pulp mill, and to try to marginalise it as “extreme”. At the national level, in both the Fairfax and Murdoch stables, Tasmanian correspondents are now whole-hearted advocates for the mill. In the Murdoch press at the weekend the whole focus of the “Tasmania correspondent” can be neatly encapsulated by this comment: “Ta Ann is shedding jobs, a decision it blames on Markets for Change persuading Japanese customers to dump its veneers”. There is nothing said about the reasons for the action taken by Markets for Change. Similarly, Chandler “withdrew a $150m investment in Gunns that would indirectly have helped progress its pulp mill, after meeting community groups and the Greens”.

Well at least the writer thinks that there is some connection between the pulp mill and the forestry problems in Tasmania, even if the ENGOs don’t! But in the end, this is how is according to the Australian: “Reasonable voices in both camps lack the courage to stand up to their extreme fringes”. That about says it all in relation to the quality of the debate in the mainstream media. There’s not even the capacity to understand that community voices against the pulp mill exist separately from some sort of caucus control, or exist at all.

So?

The point of all this is that there is a congruence between the processes at work, as epitomised through all political decisions, by all sides, Labor-Liberal-Greens, and as epitomised throughout the media. It is a congruence which marginalises, excludes and ignores community voices in total, as irrelevant, inconsequential and meaningless. The community is actually written out of the story, just as a matter of course. The community is invisible, not to be seen and not to be heard.

There is one other dimension to the discussion which is worthy of note, a dimension which always works to exclude public voices. The Tasmanian polity is actually moving further to the Right with time. The Labor Party, as Bill Hayden has just said, has probably run its race, and now stands for nothing, the Greens have shown they have little stomach for anything except helping Labor hold on to power for its own sake, and the Liberals are a nightmare waiting to happen.

Meanwhile forestry burns are prettifying the atmosphere and sterilising the land, and no doubt purifying our drinking water. It’s now been about as long as the Second World War since the lovely Pulp Mill Assessment Act was passed. It’s time to get on with Plantation Isle, GMO trees, a deal with Hexima for the same arrangements they have made with Monsanto for rust-free wheat, and some seeding money for Gunns to prosper.

Last but not least, there is the proposal – put nice and bluntly by the West report – that protests against the pulp mill must cease. We all know exactly what the next step in that direction will be.

Come on, get on with it!

First published: 2012-04-01 05:45 AM

• Lucy Landon-Lane, Pulp the Mill:

In response to the latest information in a document released by Andrew Wilkie, stating that the Federal Government is considering funding the Tamar Valley pulp mill, spokesperson for Pulp the Mill Lucy Landon-Lane said:

“How can the Federal Government spend money on a private company that is on the brink of bankruptcy, while the health, education and police sectors have been cut back severely across the nation?

“It is ridiculous for the Federal Government to even contemplate funding this pulp mill when the ANZ bank and international pulp and paper companies have found the project to be unviable. Richard Chandler Corporation pulled out of investing in Gunns when it did due diligence on the company and its pulp mill. It has been proven time and time again that there is no social licence for this mill. Why does the Federal Government want to foist this upon the people of Tasmania?”

• Anne Layton-Bennett, Friends of the Tamar Valley: More good money after bad if the Federal Government provides funds to build Gunns’ pulp mill

Reports of possible Federal Government funding that would enable Tasmanian logging company Gunns Limited to keep alive its hopes of building the controversial Tamar Valley pulp mill were today condemned by community group Friends of the Tamar Valley.

Tasmania’s Federal Independent MP for Denison, Andrew Wilkiehas suggestedfederal funding may be made available from the Export, Finance and Insurance Corporation, a Government organisation that claims to practice: ‘responsible lending in both financial and ethical contexts. We uphold best-practice environmental and social standards in the transactions we support and in managing our business.’

“Since the pulp mill has repeatedly failed to meet either best-practice environmental or social standards it’s difficult to understand how or why the Federal Government can possibly justify directing millions of taxpayer dollars towards a development that has never received social acceptance, and has consistently and repeatedly been widely condemned by the broad scientific community as being dangerously flawed, and environmentally harmful. The risks to human health especially are huge,” said FTV spokesperson Ms Layton-Bennett.

“Lack of public support for the pulp mill is evident in the results of every poll and survey ever taken, while the risks associated with allocating taxpayer funding for the project were clearly set out several years ago by the Economic Unit of the Federal Government’s own Environment Department.”

“When schools, hospitals and public services generally are being forced to undergo massive budget cuts, or potential closures, how can any government possibly believe providing millions of dollars to a company that’s involved, directly or indirectly, in a number of serious legal challenges, is public money well spent?”

“It’s about time that all Federal and State politicians - regardless of their party affiliations – understood why the community will never accept the pulp mill being built in the Tamar Valley, and why Tasmanians will never stop fighting to stop it ever being built,” Ms Layton-Bennett concluded.

THE federal government is not providing further assistance to Gunns for its proposed Tamar Valley pulp mill, Environment Minister Tony Burke says.

Denison independent MHR Andrew Wilkie told the media on Saturday that a trustworthy source had seen a draft cabinet submission relating to federal funding for the project through the Export Finance and Insurance Commission.

Yesterday Mr Wilkie said there was no doubt in his mind that such a document existed, despite senior ministers saying they had no knowledge of it and a clause in the Tasmanian forests intergovernmental agreement precluding federal funding for Gunns’ pulp mill.

Point 42 of the agreement states: ``The Commonwealth’s position is that no Commonwealth funds will be paid to progress the Bell Bay pulp mill project.’‘

Mr Burke said yesterday that he had already given the environmental approvals for the pulp mill to go ahead.

``However, we’re not providing further assistance nor are they asking for it,’’ Mr Burke said.

A spokeswoman for Regional Development Minister Simon Crean said Mr Wilkie’s claims had come as a surprise and a Gunns spokesman said the company had not applied for funding through the Export Finance and Insurance Commission.

Mr Wilkie said he had not seen the document himself, but that a source he trusted had told him about it.

Professor West is also Chairman of the Asia Advisory Council of Bunge Ltd, one of the world’s largest agribusiness processing and trading companies, and has served as an advisor to other major corporations and several Governments around the world, including in the life sciences field, DuPont, Roche, Novartis, Syngenta and the J.R. Simplot Company, along with the Governments of Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and France.

He was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Novartis Agricultural Discovery Institute in La Jolla, California. In Australia, he has served on the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering, Innovation Council’s Working Group on Science and Technology in China and India and in 2006 was ‘Eminent Thinker in Residence’ with the Premier of NSW.

Professor West has been a Director of the Company since 7 November 2005. He is Chairman of the Remuneration Committee and a member of the Audit and Risk Management Committee.

And Hexima is pushing GM and ‘biotechnology’ and pushing pesticides – advisor to Syngenta, Novartis, Dupont … how can Jonathan West be regarded as “independent” re promoting pesticide using plantations and food in Tasmania??

And is Jonathan West not the advisor to the Tas Gvt on the ‘Food Bowl’ - see article from Jan Davis

If funding the pulp mill goes to cabinet it will be Simon Crean who carries it in.

Notice how the IGA roles of Bill Kelty and Jonathan West were never advertised?

Also the Greens have been duped by the ‘IGA Trojan Horse’. More soon.

Posted by Karl Stevens on 01/04/12 at 06:50 AM

And the Launceston City Council has voted not to approve the Tamar Valley pulp mill. Does disapproval not follow through to opposition?

Posted by Mike Adams on 01/04/12 at 06:56 AM

I’ve heard a whisper that in order to fund the pulp mill, the State and Federal governments will work together to sell the Royal and the LGH to a prominent developer to convert them to casinos.

Displaced health services will be placed in the new school buildings set to close across the state, thus providing much need jobs and hospital services for marginalised areas.

To reduce labour shortfalls, the fly by night Pontville detention centre is to be relocated to a secluded area on the Longreach pulp mill site.

Detainees will be rebadged as “community progress volunteers” and will while away the years learning all manner of trades such as blasting, rock breaking, land clearing and fencing repairs.

To raise funds to subsidise the continuing operation of “the” pulp mill, the white sands of Wineglass Bay are to be dredged and transported to Abu Dhabi to flank the new ocean aircraft runway.

Wineglass Bay will become a new “deep dive” location when the sands have been removed, thus strengthening “Brand Tasmania” as a world class tourist locale.

This whole process is sure to be a winner, as all levels of government are singing sunshine and lollypops.

It remains such a shame that no one from the business sector over the last 8 years has the sense of clarity and vision that our fearless leaders do when it comes to spending public money and remaining on budget.

What is wrong with business minds when everything has been rubber stamped, infrastructure is in place, legislation tweaked and forests stand at the ready to fall?

Still, if big business won’t come on board, then I say let’s get on and support the endless list of publically funded employees who reckon this idea is pure gold.

What have we to lose????

Posted by Dave Groves on 01/04/12 at 07:11 AM

Federal money to assist a private development. I hope this is an April Fools joke!

Posted by Steve on 01/04/12 at 08:04 AM

What does Gunns have ‘over’ the Labor Party?

Posted by Christopher Purcell on 01/04/12 at 08:16 AM

I think Peter is right in that the actual “extreme” opposition to the mill was embodied in the Wilderness Society and other groups left and downwards of there. However, clearly the people of the Tamar and other interested citizens aren’t bound by any agreement by TWS to cease action on the pulpmill. Most of these people are not at all “extreme”, they just believe in good governance and common sense, as well as having a personal interest in not damaging the Tamar Valley with a stinky mill approved by dubious means.

Surely though it’s reasonable for TWS to officially cease action at some point, after all their role is the protection of wilderness, and they’ve done a good job of that - Gunns have run away, and as a result may never build the mill at all. Environment Tasmania is another story, no idea where their heads are at. In the end, Tasmanians who believe the mill is a bad idea need to learn from the successful protest movements and make their voice heard. And yes, some of them/us might have to chain them/ourselves to chunks of machinery I suppose.

Maybe stopping governments doing extremely bad things requires some of us to be a bit more extreme. After all, Warwick Raverty, Julian Green and Christopher Wright were hardly extreme feral hippies were they?

Posted by Mark Hanna on 01/04/12 at 08:53 AM

The truth fellow Islanders is that the smoke from our wasted forests is putrefying our drinking our water, not purifying it. The truth is that these moist wood waste burns are an international act of crime, this at a time when atmospheric pollution should be avoided where ever possible.
This would require change of thinking, planning and operations.
The cunning financing process is increasingly undermining the chance for Tasmania to ever become competitive and successful in the international export trade as the (local) community is being simply ignored and excluded.
Kelty, Crean, West and Fox just begin to think of “Regional Communities”, they overlooking the local community.
Tasmania to be classed as just one region… the pulpwood isle.
Where is the economic justification to hold on to the unsustainable, irresponsible, short rotation monoculture Eucalypt tree crops?
These plantings are akin to skin cancer destroying a body.
Kelty, Crean, West and Fox act like ignorant powerbrokers, they trample on our values and do not care about our trust.

Posted by Frank Strie on 01/04/12 at 08:55 AM

This whole cascade went pear-shaped when a few dogmatic & naive ENGO individuals gave a blank cheque to the forestry cabal and locked in ‘a pulp mill’ through the Statement of Forest Principles Agreement. That politically-based nonsense that commenced in October 2010 has created unnecessary derision and conflict in the community. They sought some form of ‘social licence’ from their constituency but, as the time and tide has shown, they have not received it!

Regrettably the pulp mill ‘roll over’ seems to be infectious with various leaders either missing in action or defecting in dribs and drabs to the “Final Solution” - a plantation-fed pulp mill in the Tamar Valley. How has it come to that deception?

Is Andrew Wilkie really, genuinely giving acceptability to a pulp mill funded by Canberra? How has it come to that for Andrew? Some of his Denison constituency will not see eye-to-eye with him on that political decision!

Is Jonathon West playing both sides off against each other and - as research shows - also has his own vested interest?

Is the ‘end justifing the means’ and smoke & mirrors working at finally wearing all these political spivs down?

The forest ‘shit’ is about to hit the fan and the back-room deals are still being done behind closed doors.

The Tasmanian Greens (18-22% electoral support) have taken their constituents on a magical mystery tour that has some of the hallmarks of the deceptive games played by their fellow coalition partners - Labor.

Two years out from the next State poll it’s a political gamble for them; analogous to the plight that Wilkie’s problem-gamblers face every day they play the odds!

Join the ‘cool tripper’ vanguard at your peril.

Posted by David Obendorf on 01/04/12 at 09:23 AM

Remember the leaked letter from Pitt & Sherry - the organisers of the ‘businesses for the pulp mill’ ad in local tassie newspapers?

Can it be said that those who are pushing to deny environmentlists a voice and prohibit demonstrations are LESS extreme than those who want their voices to be heard?

Posted by Barnaby Drake on 01/04/12 at 10:07 AM

Happy April Fools Day.

Posted by Garry Stannus on 01/04/12 at 10:37 AM

#13 And who exactly are you calling an April fool?

Posted by Peter Henning on 01/04/12 at 10:56 AM

How about the Canberra money is used to relocate the pulp mill proposal to Hampshire? That would be accepted by the majority of Tasmanians, especially if the Hampshire pulp mill was properly and independently assessed.

Posted by jon bannock on 01/04/12 at 12:17 PM

It is April 1st, but Dave Groves’ comment at #5 is the most sensible yet, as it points out beautifully the extent to which conspiracy theories will be taken by those who want to do so.

Everybody doing anything in Tasmania is a complete rogue. Not only that, but they are all in league with each other in a beautifully co-ordinated plot. Just imagine the masterfully-facilitated meetings they must have with each other in the dead of night.

Some of them might have had ideals in the first place, and been “naive” in getting conned by those already in the tent, but no more. All of them are now fully-paid up members of the ruling cabal with absolutely no doubt about the rightness of any of their actions. Stalin and Mao could have learnt a lot about community control if they’d come here.

PS none of this applies, of course, to single-issue people who have a bona fide address in the Tamar Valley.

Posted by Neil Smith on 01/04/12 at 02:00 PM

#8 ...“Surely though it’s reasonable for TWS to officially cease action at some point, after all their role is the protection of wilderness, and they’ve done a good job of that - Gunns have run away, and as a result may never build the mill at all”.

Mark to that i say - yes it would be ok for TWS to walk away from the pulp mill campaign which they campaigned on many grounds (not just forests) so passionately IF the job was finished.

To walk away because the politics of a campaign to save forest suddenly isnt compatible with the pulp mill campaign is appalling.

I dont buy the line that by Gunns moving to a 100% plantation based mill has forced TWS into campaign retirement. Lets not forget the mill was always going to move to 100% plantation at some stage (5 years after commissioning or sooner). Why did Gunns or any other political or industry supporter of the pulp mill ever ask TWS (when TWS was actively campaigning) if their campaign would stop when the mill moved to 100% plantation? Why did the mates not try to wedge TWS with that question?

Look at The Wilderness Society’s missions statements and they have a mandate TO, and indeed DO actively campaign against projects and activity all over Australia which have little or nothing to with forest protection. Coasts, rivers, oceans, land clearing, aboriginal heritage etc. All related to the pulp mill project. Have we forgotten the Franklin damns campaign?

I put this to Garry Stannus on another thread and he still hasnt responded.

The Wilderness Societies, (an ENGO that has has increasingly strayed in the political realm) virtual disappearance from the pulp mill campaign was act of expedience. I knew when i talked to their SOP’s negotiator a few years ago, and subsequent conversations with current campaigners that TWS were looking for a way out because it was simply expedient to do so.

When it comes to expediency, past environmental campaigns in tassie show us that the Wildo’s do have form.

Posted by pilko on 01/04/12 at 03:05 PM

It is no surprise to hear from Andrew Wilkie (Mercury: Canberra ‘to pay for pulp mill’) that there is a proposal to finance the mill using public money through the federal Export Finance and Insurance Commission.

EFIC state that they are environmentally aware and abide by th Equator Principles.

Gunns has already failed this test eight years ago, hence their currnt position - bankrupt.

However EFIC is a governement department and subject to lobbying, rent-seeking and string pulling. The safety net may have some large holes in it.

Even before the GFC, corruption was the biggest industry on earth. Tas Inc was quick to note the opportunities.

The diversion of public resources by government to fund an economically illogical private pulp project for political gain and favoured cronies could vault Australia into the forefront of the world’s leading kleptocracies.

As with the GFC, this heist is being pulled off by an establishment which the public has not learned to properly mistrust . Mooted plans to jettison some of the most basic democratic rights have elicited only the slightest stirring in the fold.

Tassie clearly has the brains and scruples to mix it with Burma and anyone else, regardless of the rantings of eco-terrorists, saboteurs, and traitors such as Henning.

John hayward

Posted by john hayward on 01/04/12 at 04:40 PM

Sorry for not replying Rick, (#17) in another thread. I can’t remember what it was exactly, I think I had the feeling that you’d asked a couple of questions, and that I was being led away from whatever point my contribution had been about, and perhaps being required to defend/answer something that I hadn’t actually posited. Then, if that dodgy memory serves me, I also thought that there has to be a way not to try and have the last say, and so I think I just tried to disappear.

Was it on the question of the Wildos campaigning or not campaigning against the mill, I think I made the point somewhere around that time that the Wildo’s raison d’être is the protection of wilderness. While the pulp mill threatened native forest they had a reason directly related to their core aims - protecting the bush from the mill. We all had and have our different reasons and now i think I remember a bit more, that you were attacking them for not putting out an instant press release on something that had come up. I knew that they’d all gone into the Tarkine that Friday+weekend and so I think I came into the thread to simply let you know that they were most likely blissfully unaware of the latest developments, whatever they then were. Quite coincidentally, they are in the Blue Tier this weekend (carbon counting) and I imagine they are out of contact there, as well. I would have been there myself, but I’d got tired out by a very long travelling day on Friday to do some research - which i think I told you about privately.

Anyway to return to the point that I made then, I have no gripe with them if they have no reason to mount an official Wildo campaign. Though, in some other research I’ve been doing today, I see that some of their unpublicised work made an impression on Schirmer, the man who produced the report last year which proved the fact of the downturn, and explained why it happened. They’ve always been very controlled in what they commnicate to the public, and what they do communicate, well, its not my style. With the exceptions of some that I’m sure I noted last time, on a personal level the TWS members that I know are against the pulp mill and support and participate in what we all do. I don’t expect them to lead the campaign, and now that TAP has imploded we are all doing what we can in various ways. And I try and help them too, because I want to protect our forests as much as possible. I hope this helps, and once again, my apologies - Garry.

Posted by Garry Stannus on 01/04/12 at 05:54 PM

Peter, at #14: My ‘Happy April Fools Day” was not made with anyone particularly in mind - . I had trouble accepting the news that Federal Government members could be so stupid after all these years to even contemplate financial assistance to Gunns. It absolutely beggars belief. And then I noticed the date. I wondered if Andrew had been fed a joke by somebody, and in this bizarre State called Tas, which you’ve already referred to elsewhere, the bizarre could turn out to be true. I was busy with some other work and used the short comment as a means of keeping in touch with subsequent debate. Just in passing, I continue to have problems receiving those ‘someone has just replied to your comment’ messages. I’m not sure if it’s a problem at my end, or at Tas Time’s end. Do you have the same problem?

Posted by Garry Stannus on 01/04/12 at 06:11 PM

#3 West, Kelty, Fox all mates of Simon Crean - the single biggest advocate for the pulp mill in federal ranks? Labor bedfellows. Frequent & Favoured advisors to Crean and the Labor govt.

Lindsay Fox publicly weighing into the pulp mill debate for the firsty time today.

People are just trying to make sense of where Mr West is coming from. The bloke has only written a report & made public reccomendations which could have significant long term impacts on our communities.

You dont get a guernsey on a government committee unless you are someone who the government can ‘work with’. Government’s dont commissipon reports they cant live with and they dont appoint people who will write such reports.

Did we really expect the IVG and its report to say - ‘we reccommend the pulp mill permits be cancelled because the pulp mill is shit business proposal and it will continue to divide Tasmanians?

Mark Temby despite his patronising tone told us where West is coming from visa vee the proposed mill.

Posted by pilko on 01/04/12 at 06:43 PM

I wonder if Mr Wilkie has been used by a Gunns supporter or shareholder here?

The leaking of good news for Gunns on the eve of the resumption of trading in GNS shares seems rather too convenient, although I’m sure Mr Wilkie would not knowing participate in such shenanigans.

Posted by Scott on 01/04/12 at 07:51 PM

Has there been any testing for toxins in the Huon River? All I have been able to find is some stuff about the estuary, but not the upper river. There are comments on websites among fishermen that the Huon does not fish as well as other rivers. I am curious why. Are the tree plantations heavily sprayed?

Someone said on TT recently the Weld River has toxins, but they gave no detail if it was from mining up there, or something else. I can not find any mention of this elsewhere. Anyone know?

Any old-timers on TT who fished the Huon River more than 20 years ago and can relate if there have been noticeable changes?

Posted by Troutman on 01/04/12 at 07:57 PM

wouldn’t we love to know how the Wildos’cash register is ticking over these days? ...Harry

Posted by Harry Luster on 01/04/12 at 10:14 PM

#15 How much evidence do you need to demonstrate that a pulp mill will be unsustainable, uneconomic and a dinosaur sucking public money into it from day one of its operation, whether it is built in the Tanar valley or anywhere else? Please explain how it will be able to compete in the global marketplace without massive subsidisation. Please explain how it will get its feedstock. And even if it gets its feedstock from imports please explain how that will make it more competitive rather than less competitive in the global marketplace. And please explain how the current technological revolution will not impact on even the most cost-efficient pulp producers, in a world where use of paper products continues to decline rather than increase.

Posted by Peter Henning on 02/04/12 at 06:12 AM

I find it incomprehensible how the mill can involve so much energy in supporting it, when the share market shows a complete lack of confidence.

Posted by Keith Antonysen on 02/04/12 at 07:23 AM

To the ASX.

On behalf of myself and the 849 million shareholders, I wish to lodge a complaint about the activities of Gunns Ltd (GNS) who have been granted a second extension to their third trading halt.

This has stopped trading of shares at 16 cents, which is both above the current value of the company and does not reflect true market value.

The actual price is nearer 10 cents, but this ploy is being used to prevent the price falling below the price of their new Rights Issue of 12 cents. They are proposing to raise a further $400 million by this and will try to issue in the region of 3,2 billion new shares, which will dilute the present holding by a very substantial amount.

This trading halt does not allow shareholders to divest themselves of their current holding before this dilution takes place.

It is an attempted deception but it has been sanctioned by the ASX itself.

I feel sure that Gunns will try to do this again today, 2nd April 2012.

I would ask you to refuse any such further requests and insist they resume normal trading immediately.

This is a duty that you owe to your own clients under your own rules.

I would like a reply to this email, but not in three weeks time after the event.

After all Gunns itself gets immediate treatment and I feel their shareholders should be accorded the same privilege.

Thank you

Posted by A Shareholder on 02/04/12 at 07:27 AM

Tasmanian Times attempt to suppress the ‘real’ Jonathan West story is a disgrace. Especially after awarding Doctor Alison Bleaney a ‘Tasmanian of the Year’ award. This is hypocrisy of the highest order and I want to know who leaned on the Editor to cut this information from public view?

Posted by Karl Stevens on 02/04/12 at 07:46 AM

#24, back around 2000 the Council started its Healthy Rivers program. I attended one of the first presentations of the results and noted tests focused on oxygen levels due to phosphates and other “fertilisers.” The main contributors would be farms, sewerage and fish farms. Although this is very important for algal blooms and aquaculture monitoring, I did ask whether or not tests had been conducted for agricultural chemicals. The response was in the negative. The Huon Healthy River report, once released, appeared to be politicised as Evan Rolley (FT) and others claimed it gave all agricultural activities, including forestry, a tick of approval. It was a nonsense and totally untested. The current council could provide more current information but I doubt the process has changed.

Posted by Mark on 02/04/12 at 07:57 AM

Simon Crean said that Andrew Wilkie’s claims had come as a surprise. Like, ‘How the hell did he come by that document; I thought we’d hidden it.

Posted by Mike Adams on 02/04/12 at 08:10 AM

I would like to know why Professor Jonathan West chooses to live in a ‘GM-free zone’ while he has spent the last 6 years promoting GMO technology? Either West knows GMO technology is dangerous to the entire food chain or he is covertly trying to convert Tasmania to a ‘GMO Foodbowl’.

Posted by Karl Stevens on 02/04/12 at 09:06 AM

Dr Alison Bleaney once again shows her bias in #2 with the phrase ‘re promoting pesticide using plantations and food’.

Plantation use in tasmania and Australia is minimal in comparison to agriculture, horticulture, industrial, and domestic use. Yet she puts it first just about every time.

A few facts: In 2004 the expenditure on plantation chemical use was jut 0.7% of the national total, as shown by myself and Braden Jenkin in a publicly available report to the then Forest and Wood Products R & D Corporation - now Forests and Wood Products Australia.

2004 was in the peak period of expansion of plantations in Australia. Today, that expenditure has shrunk to no more than about 0.4% of the total, due to three factors.

These are, firstly, the recovery in the agricultural sector following the prolonged drought, secondly the collapse of the major expansion by the MIS companies which have fallen over, and thirdly, the collapse in a key chemical cost due to the chemical coming off-patent. That chemical is hexazinone, used in pine plantation establishment, whose cost has dropped from around $80/kg to about $25. This has caused DuPont Agricultural Products, the original registrants, to drop out of the hexazinone market in Australia.

Nearly all pine establishment today is re-establishment, that is on second or even third rotation sites, so that most of the chemical expenditure is for weed control in pine plantation establishment. There is little new area in all species being established - I think the National Forest Inventory put it at abut 20,000 ha last year compared to over 80,000 some years ago in the peak period.

0.4% represents just $1 in every $250 spent on pesticides annually.

Finally, I note yet again that in the Tasmanian water monitoring program, agricultural chemicals not used in forestry are by far the most frequently those that are detected in streams, in particular MCPA.

Alison, harping on chemical use in plantations is really rather a trivial pursuit, and rather passe -always has been.

Dr Barry Tomkins

Posted by Dr Barry Tomkins on 02/04/12 at 09:43 AM

Now who would (wouldn’t) have guessed that Gunns would make another ASX non-announcement today and request another share trading suspension?

Which other private company has the ASX ever given so much unquestioned leeway to, and why?

Posted by Russell Langfield on 02/04/12 at 10:19 AM

I offer a sincere apology to Mr Wilkie MP for my comments in #10 where I wrote: “Is Andrew Wilkie really, genuinely giving acceptability to a pulp mill funded by Canberra? How has it come to that for Andrew? Some of his Denison constituency will not see eye-to-eye with him on that political decision!”

The context of my remark was to incorrectly comment on Mr Wilkie’s position and the comment did not take into account Andrew’s long-standing & strong opposition to the Tamar Valley pulp mill. The Mercury article highlights that he was calling of the Commonwealth Government to rule out any financial support to this pulp mill project. My apology for that misrepresentation.

For me the deeper concern in posting comment #10 was about the loss of trust that Tasmanians are having in this pulp mill project and that included the subsequent actions & reactions of the signatories to the State of Forest Principles Agreement that put this dying project on life-support for another few years.

Privately TWS have been telling sympathetic pulp mill opponents the reason for TWS scaled down (cough) pulp mill campaign is because a 100% plantation based pulp mill effectively doesnt give TWS much to campaign against anymore. You only have to look at TWS own campaign page to see that is bunkum.

Gary click on the Gunns Pulp Mill link on TWS campaign page and the sparsity of recent material or comment shows us excatly how much passion & energy has been devoted to the pulp mill campaign since TWS entered the SOP negotiations and pulp politics and forest politics began to clash.

Gary check out the headline photo on the top of the TWS campaign page of one of TWS biggest anti-pulp mill rallies in Tasmania - At Low Head Beach - highlighting the risk the dispersal of 23 - 51 gigalitres per year of industrial process effluent into Bass Strait and the impacts industrial effluent will have on fisheries, marine ecosystems, the local coastal environment, and human health.

Garry both TWS/ET have gone on record as saying these impacts have not been adequately considered given the collapse of the RPDC process in 2007.

Gary according to ET, The Chief Scientist’s report clearly states that the 2007 Federal decision ignored independent advice regarding the threat of pollution on Tasmania’s beaches and in State waters. Documents released to the Tasmanian Greens under FOI show that Government is aware that there is both scientific uncertainty and increasing concern about risk to ecosystems and fisheries from compounds like sterols, which originate from the pulping, rather than the bleaching process.

Gary we havent even began to talk about the ongoing risks to Tasmanian wildlife from the pulp mill log truck plague. Have a chat to Tony Sadd’s & Christine Milnes office about that situation. Then there is atmospheric pollution and the risks to environmental & public health in the valley, the health of the river etc.

No basis left for a campaign or just expediency Gary?

I realise i sound like a broken record Gary but what i’m about here is trying to get people like yourself to think harder on this one and keep asking questions.

Posted by pilko on 02/04/12 at 10:51 AM

Perhaps Dr Tomkins (#33) could explain why it would be wrong to reduce the over-all use of pesticides by 0.4%.

Posted by Tim Thorne on 02/04/12 at 10:57 AM

The rumour might be an April Fool’s joke that’s been played on Andrew Wilkie and then the rest of Tassie. But is the existence of an “Export Finance and Insurance Commission”, also just a rumour?

If it is real entity, and not fictitious, has it ever assisted Tasmanian exporters and exports of any kind?

And if it really is within its scope to assist Gunns, can the same be applied to assist Tasmanian exporters with the need for direct international shipping? We really are in strife with the current situation of increased costs, including being forced to go through Port of Melbourne.

Perhaps Andrew Wilkie can assist to explore the possibilities.

Peter Mack

Posted by Peter Mackenzie on 02/04/12 at 11:12 AM

Nick McKim must explain the the Tasmanian Green voters why he introduced a motion into Tasmania’s Parliament seeking to block criticism of a proponent of GMO ‘Frankenstein Food’ technology. Does Nick McKim now support GMO technology himself and if so how long has it been Greens policy?

Posted by Karl Stevens on 02/04/12 at 12:06 PM

#28 Totally agree. The suspension news obviously did not reach ComSec in time on the 13th March as trading started in Gunns’ shares at 10am. The price dropped to 10 cents before all traces were quickly removed.

Posted by Rod on 02/04/12 at 12:16 PM

Mill opponents here are continually arguing against the mill based on public interest logic, while the pro-mill crowd regards such arguments as an irrelevant nuisance.

People seem to have forgotten the fact that Lara admitted last year the entire Roundtable/IGA caper was a fraud set up to provide a counterfeit social license to a non-participant Gunns.

This should have ended all debate about the legitimacy of the mill, and shifted the focus to the desirability of letting Tas Inc rob us.

John Hayward

Posted by john hayward on 02/04/12 at 12:45 PM

surely there must be a case for a class action against the asx. shareholders cant sell because the asx is pandering to gunns.

Posted by ignatz on 02/04/12 at 03:46 PM

john hayward 41 Surely the highlight of the IGA is that after two years we have two entirely different versions of what happened. Tony Burke, Bill Kelty, Simon Crean, Lara Giddings etc,etc,etc all swear it was about helping Gunns get their pulp mill up. On the other hand Environment Tasmania and The Wilderness Society swear it was about getting something else up but they are not sure what. In the meantime the charity begging bowl is out waiting for the next sucker to throw some of their Centrelink benefit into.

Posted by Karl Stevens on 02/04/12 at 03:50 PM

Tim Thorne #37: If your suggestion of an overall 0.4% reduction in pesticide use was across all uses, no problem. If, however, you are suggesting that it be solely ceasing use for plantation establishment, your suggestion would mean a drastic reduction in the long term supply of a basic commodity, which is KD pine house framing. KD pine provides around 85% of the timber framing for houses in Australia.

And unlike agriculture and other uses, plantation pesticide use is 99% herbicides, only used in the first two growing seasons, and not at all for the remainder of the 30 year rotation.

Your suggestion is pretty dippy, actually.

Dr Barry Tomkins

Posted by Dr Barry Tomkins on 02/04/12 at 03:55 PM

Re #44: It wasn’t a suggestion so much as a question. I want to see a 100% reduction in the use of such pesticides across all industries, and I have never singled out timber plantations as culprits. On the other hand, if KD pine can’t be grown organically, then we should weigh up the environmental damage against that inflicted by possible substitute materials.

Posted by Tim Thorne on 02/04/12 at 04:46 PM

Re #45: The substitute materials are steel and prefab concrete/composite panels in the main. These are both energy intensive compared to milling timber and put out CO2 in the manufacturing process. At least in processing pine logs there is some energy payback if the sawdust/waste material is burnt to generate electricity or for process heating eg of water. Wood locks up carbon for long periods.

There is only around 1 million ha of pine, grown intensively. Compare that to just wheat (10 million ha or more, with weed, fungal and insect control using pesticides), or canola also about 1 million ha, using herbicides every year. Only about 30-35,000 ha of pine is harvested per year and re-established, and I repeat, herbicides are only used in the first two years, and in pine there is very little insecticide use, or fungicide.

I hope that clears things for you.

Dr Barry Tomkins

Posted by Dr Barry Tomkins on 02/04/12 at 05:26 PM

Tim Thorne 43. Interesting concept Tim, organically grown arsenic treated pine. That’s what KD pine is. You can request the ACQ treated pine instead of the CCA product but the fact it’s treated makes growing it organically a bit futile. Dr Barry would know this of course but what he isn’t telling you is that the imported KD pine is a lot cheaper then the Aussie stuff. Why not use Tas oak instead? No dirty sprays and its not imported from Asia. Get it from McKay Timber at Bridgwater.

Posted by Karl Stevens on 02/04/12 at 08:04 PM

#29. I regard a number of your past comments in regard to the Professor John West Report, where you attempt to offer an opinion, is little more than a form of spurious doubt-casting, thus offering almost nil addressment to the articles posted on Tas Times.
Attacking both friend and foe does you no favours Karl.

Posted by William Boeder on 02/04/12 at 08:29 PM

re 34, in answer to your question Russel, CMA Recycling, and buggered if I know. Over 14 months suspension of trading, court cases and all manner of dodgy crap. The regulator even breached its own rules by failing to respond to providers of information pointing to illegal conduct within the stated 28 days. In fact the allegations have never been responded to, and near 12 months have passed.

Posted by Simon Warriner on 02/04/12 at 08:39 PM

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